Legitimate Questions
by Ithilmir
Summary: Watson stumbles across a Holmes family secret. Features a well known historical persona.


**A/N:** This is a canonical/historical impossibility, yet still I have written it. This is my first attempt to write within the Holmes fandom (and may possibly be the last); so any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Note: The historical person in question is Arthur Wellesley.

* * *

It is on this day of national, and dare I say, international mourning that I feel I must take up my pen and record what has been one of the most curious incidences to my mind to have occurred in Baker Street; one that shall forever be imprinted on my memory for its sheer strangeness and power to amaze. It is also a story of potentially great scandal, which is why it is only now when I am assured both parties concerned are deceased, that I choose to commit this to paper.

The event of which I speak occurred back in the days when Holmes and I were first lodging together. At that point I had only known my friend a few months, yet already we had shared some fascinating and singular experiences of the kind which would bind our lives together for many years to come. On returning from my surgery one afternoon I observed a plain black carriage waiting outside our rooms at 221B. Thinking no more than my friend must be interviewing a potential client, I let myself in, only to be greeted in the hallway by a rather flustered and excitable Mrs. Hudson.

"Oh, Dr. Watson, there you are! Mr. Holmes has a gentleman with him – a very important gentleman, I do declare! And to have such a gentleman in my house!"

My curiosity piqued, I asked her to which gentleman she referred (for Holmes, as the reader will be aware, has had many gentlemen of the most illustrious nature as his clients), but she merely smiled in a cryptic fashion and disappeared into her sitting room without another word. Thoroughly perplexed, I mounted the stairs to our shared sitting room and entered – and was amazed to find two identical faces staring back at me.

I say identical, and it is true that in essence the faces were the same; but two faces at the extremities of adult life. The younger, the one which belonged to my friend, looked back at me with a familiar quizzical expression, and the other, much older face, replicated this expression almost perfectly. Yet this older face was not unknown to me; was well-known to any man in the street who took even the slightest interest in the affairs of State today or the history of the past Age – a face belonging to a great heroic figure beloved by any patriotic soul. His head still possessed a decent covering of snowy-white hair, his shoulders were hunched with arthritis, his cheeks somewhat hollow betraying a set of ill-fitting false teeth; but the clear blue eyes were hard and sharp, reminding me somewhat of a cat watching from a garden wall – or perhaps an eagle, if one were to take into account the great hooked nose which sat between those eyes.

I admit to my shame that for a short while I stood staring open-mouthed at the two faces before me, and it was not until the old man arched one inquisitive white eyebrow that I recollected myself.

"Well, Sherlock," he said to my companion, though he did not release me from his unrelenting gaze. "Are you not going to introduce us?"

"My sincerest apologies, Your Grace. This is my dearest friend and colleague, Dr. Watson; Watson, I have the honour to present to you –"

"Yes, yes of course!" I cut off my friend in my enthusiasm, stepping forward and thrusting my hand out to the gentleman. "Sir, I must say that it truly is a great honour, a great honour indeed, to meet you."

"Sherlock has told me much about you, doctor." The old gentleman rose from his seat somewhat stiffly and took my hand, and I confess in that instant I trembled and my knees weakened. "Most of it highly complimentary."

"You are too kind, sir," I replied. The grip of that wrinkled hand was surprisingly firm, denoting that he had once been a healthy, if not powerful man, though even now he was clearly not a cripple. The gentleman smiled, a tight-lipped smile, doubtless developed to suppress his hated teeth.

"Not I, Dr. Watson, but Sherlock. And if you will excuse me I fear I must be on my way directly; I have overstayed my time here by a full quarter of an hour."

"Certainly, Your Grace," Holmes said, rising from his chair also and in turn taking the gentleman's hand. "We shall not detain you any longer. Good day to you."

"Good day. Dr. Watson… Kindly remember to pass on my regards to your mother when you next write to her, Sherlock."

"Indeed, I shall."

And with that the gentleman picked up an ebony walking cane from beside the chair he had been sitting in, and made his way to the door. As soon as he had departed I immediately rounded on my friend.

"Holmes! Why did you not tell me?"

Holmes looked at me with his sharp eyes, studying my doubtlessly flushed face carefully.

"It is not the sort of thing," he said at length. "That one likes to have bandied about. I have grown used to not telling anyone."

"But even so… I cannot think why I did not see it before!"

"Because, my dear Watson, you had no reason to see it; no reason at all – and that is how I would prefer it to stay."

"Of course." The expression on his face did somewhat sober me. "Of course, I shall say nothing."

"You are too kind."

"But still," I could not help but press him. "You have not told me how, or why. How did this occur?"

"I do not concern myself with the details or motive, as it were; merely the facts. It was a brief acquaintance, a dalliance one might say, when father was away in the north. His Grace was down visiting the Salisburys at the time."

"Good heavens!" The whole thing seemed to me most extraordinary. "And yet for nothing more than a 'dalliance' he seems to look upon you in the kindest terms."

Holmes fixed me with a particularly cold gaze, which suggested that I may have crossed the boundaries of decency.

"I said 'brief'; I did not say without affection," he stated curtly. "He has not once overlooked his responsibilities. It was he who funded my time at Oxford, along with my subsequent studies before I could support myself with a trade. He even offered to set me up in a practice of my own; but that, I felt, I was obliged to decline. Yet he still takes an active interest in myself and my work, even though I am no longer in need of his support. I have often called on him, yet it has been somewhat difficult of late – I have my cases and he has his papers – hence, the unprecedented occurrence of his coming to Baker Street. His duties are of the utmost importance to him, though his intellect is unhappily tied down in the mire that is bureaucracy - State security, inventions, fruitless plans for the defence of the south coast and the enlargement of Dover Harbour. A sad decline for a once great man, and a retirement in all but name."

I could tell from his tone that I had wounded him with my unthinking remark, and sought to make amends.

"I am sorry, I did not mean to cause offence."

"It was a careless remark; but since it was made by you, dear Watson, and no other man, I am willing to forgive it."

"Thank you, Holmes," I murmured with quiet sincerity. "That is indeed most generous of you."

My friend furnished me with a brief smile.

"But, come!" he exclaimed, rising from his chair with a sudden energy. "Let us think no more of it! We have far more urgent matters to discuss than the infinite complexities of family, which we can do on our way to Brixton."

"Brixton?"

"Yes, Brixton. I received a telegram during your absence this morning which informed me of a neat little problem I might find there; it is not much but it may well lead to something greater. You will join me, of course?"

"Of course," I said, a demi-smile accompanying my tone of weary resignation. Holmes' own smile returned, broader than before.

"Excellent! We shall leave straight away! Mrs. Hudson! Mrs. Hudson, the doctor and I are departing for Brixton – if you would keep supper warm for us on our return…?"

And with that he swept out of the room, clattering down the stairs and I followed, resigned as ever to whatever fate would have in store for us that evening.


End file.
